A Tainted Finish: A Sydney McGrath Mystery Read Free Page B

just as attentive to his adult daughter. Jim sent Charlie notes and gifts, and traveled the 240 miles to Seattle almost monthly to take his daughter to the opera or a Mariner's game. She would occasionally tag along with Charlie and Jim, although he invited her to almost every outing they had. She loved them dearly, but lately she began to define the strange feeling she had when she was around them as envy. It embarrassed her to feel that way toward her best friend.
    “I talked to Charlie this morning,” he said as he glanced at her, almost reading her thoughts.
    “I didn't call her,” she said, her voice flat. “Actually, I did, but it was at 2 am, from the car. But I couldn't talk. She kept saying hello and she was getting mad, like I was some kind of creeper.” She smiled sadly at him and swallowed back a sudden wooziness.
    “Yeah. You're lucky she couldn't taze you through a phone line,” he said halfheartedly. He was always proud of his tough little girl. Syd nodded silently.
    “She's coming down tonight. She told me to tell you she'll do the arrangements for you.”
    “I'm. . . I can do it.” She realized as she said it that she really couldn't do it herself. Suddenly she felt desperately alone. She wanted Charlie with her so badly. Charlie was like a sister. She was family. Charlie knew her issues with Clarence. Charlie knew about every fight and challenge Syd threw back at her uncle. She understood what Syd faced with his cryptic, eccentric efforts at parenting. Still, Charlie understood her uncle like no one else. She admired Clarence with quiet awe and always defended him, even during the worst storm – when Syd left her Fulbright scholarship at Oxford to attend sommelier school. It infuriated Syd that Charlie could empathize with her own hurt but still maintain an unwavering reverence for Clarence. But Charlie was special like that.
    “Have you heard from Marcus?” Jim broke the silence.
    “Who?” she asked.
    “Uh, Marcus. It's Marcus, right? You two still together?” Jim looked ready to backpedal out of unsteady ground. Boyfriend issues with his girls were always hit or miss.
    “Oh. . .Marcus. Yes, we’re still together.” A feeling of wretchedness swept over her. She was unsure if it was coming from her head or her stomach.
    Jim squished his face in hesitation. “Charlie says you might want to call him. She says he's frantic.”
    “Oh.” A moment later she squealed, lurched forward, and vomited on the floor at her feet.
    ~
    “It smells nothing like the movies in here,” she said, feigning humor to Jim. He looked at her with concern. “I've never been to the morgue.”
    He wanted to ask her if she had ever seen a dead body before. He knew she was pre-med in college. He certainly didn’t want to cause another bout of nausea, so he decided to keep his mouth shut. Besides, it wasn't just a dead body. It was her uncle she would be looking at, and he wouldn't look like she had remembered. Honestly, Jim was a bit haunted by the transformation of Clarence Blackwell.
    “This is the coroner's office,” he said, gently guiding her by the shoulder into a small room adjacent to what looked like a reception area. Her wet flip flops squished in conspicuously vulgar sounds on the linoleum tiles. They had to wash the vomit off her feet and pant legs with a hose they found outside the county buildings. Her jeans were wet almost to the knees and she was trembling. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder tighter, hating his job. He felt utterly helpless.
    They stepped through the next door with trepidation and Sydney squished into a room filled with an odd mix of smells: wine, something earthy and woodsy, terpenes, and a kind of chemical sweetness. She was surprised at how comforting the aromas were at the same time that her sterile surroundings seemed so surreal. She looked at the form on the table in the middle of the room, astonished.
    Clarence was purple. The deep lines in his 64-year-old weathered